By Rieva Lesonsky
Have you heard about Outright.com? The site, which offers free online bookkeeping for self-employed and small-business owners, just announced it has surpassed $2 billion in recorded transactions for its customers.
I first heard about Outright.com in March at eBay live. This past weekend at another eBay Live event, several eBay sellers told me about how great they thought the product was and how much it’s helped them–so I had to check it out for myself.
“Outright was created after watching entrepreneurs struggle to capture all of their business deductions, often piecing together different solutions,” the company’s founders write on their site. “Whether sticking every possible receipt in a file folder and shipping it off to a bookkeeper, tracking everything in a huge spreadsheet, or even using a couple of different websites to track transactions and create invoices, the results were invariably the same: too much time and effort spent on the least enjoyable part of running one’s own business.” Sound familiar? It sure does to me.
Outright’s goal: “To keep it as simple as possible; helping entrepreneurs track all of their income and expenses to get their taxes done accurately.”
Outright.com focuses on “microbusinesses,” such as independent contractors, freelancers, realtors helping them connect with financial professionals, deal with online payments and transactions and market themselves online. The site lets you easily import transactions from your website and “put your bookkeeping on autopilot.”
The site has recently added new services including a directory of financial professionals, so you can connect with CPAs, tax professionals and bookkeepers. (Or, if you’re a bookkeeper, take advantage of Outright’s free certification for bookkeepers to promote your business to the self-employed professionals who use outright.com.)
“Today millions of self employed professionals still turn to costly websites or internet yellow pages and phone listings to build their online presence,” says Kevin Reeth (above), founder of Outright.com. “We understand that people working for themselves — artists, realtors, craftsman, gardeners, retailers, contractors and eBay sellers — only want simplicity when it comes to working online, bookkeeping, and running their business. The profiles and directory on Outright.com help entrepreneurs connect with professionals, and by extension easily promote themselves online.”
The founders of Outright.com came from Intuit, so they have a lot of knowledge about small business’s bookkeeping needs. They’re backed by some big names in VC, including Sequoia Capital, so my guess is this company’s going to grow. Check out their offerings and see if you find something to help you.
